A path unwinding
by kimmiesjoy
Summary: Between them they have racked up enough nightmares to last any sane person a lifetime and they still keep going, keep making it through to the other side. But tonight she needs the reassurance. The comfort she finds only in him. Post Dreamworld Pre Need to know. *contains mild spoilers for aired promos of 6.03*


She wakes to the sound of her own voice as it takes up the darkness of her room, the yell that fills in the gaps between shadows, draws out monsters and demons and drowns the thunder crash rhythm of her own heartbeat.

It's still dark outside, almost as dark as this hollowed out space in her chest, and she's alone. Kate shivers, soaked through with sweat and visions of too green grass and her dreams dying at the tips of her fingers dancing just close enough that she can still feel their spider web like touch lingering over her skin.

She dials without thought, the phone already in her hand though she doesn't remember picking it up and his name on her lips as she gasps it down the silent echo of the line.

"Beckett?"

"Castle..." She breathes, through the choke in her voice that he hears anyway, through the gaping cavern of anxious fear that exists between each heartbeat, through the mounting rise of panic, she breathes.

"Kate." He sounds tired, for the last week he has sounded nothing but, and resigned as the bed creaks around him and he sits up. Kate closes her eyes and leans back against the headboard, throws herself through space to imagine herself at his side in the pitch cocoon of his bedroom, lets the warmth of their bed press at the cold tinge of fear.

"Did it happen again?"

She wants to lie, every night for the last six nights she has wanted to lie, to breeze through it, to say no and tell him she's fine. She's fine and just missing him, she's fine and how was his day?

She doesn't. Now the lies are harder than the truth. They don't come easy, and her need to protect him is only lessened by her need to let him in, to feel close to him.

"Yes."

"Oh, Kate." He sighs. And in that bedroom in her mind, where they lay together side by side his fingers would be threading through hers and heat of his skin would be leaching into her own.

"Did I wake you?"

"Yeah."

The lies don't come easy for him either and she likes that. Likes that he says yes even knowing she'll blame herself, because they would rather have the truth between them. The truth and no distance at all.

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not." More honesty, his voice a gravel rasp of meaning, of support she clings to as she fights the urge to turn on the light and scare the monsters away.

"You said that last night." She smiles softly.

"I'll say it again tomorrow if I have to." He promises, "But this is the last time, Kate."

"Said that last night too". She runs a hand down her face, shifts quietly in the dark and thumb's the screen, lets his voice swell out into the room and light up the night.

"Was it like this for you?" She asks, can ask now that his voice isn't a mere echo in her head. It's been mounting ever since they said goodbye at the airport, ever since she started having the dream. The wonder, the questions. The terrifying weight of not knowing - she gasps the words as she asks, "Did you do this alone, Castle?"

"No, not like this." His voice deepens and the barest echo that resonates around them tells her he's moved, that they are mirror images, two halves of the same coin on opposite ends of the phone line, curled up in bed. It helps. "Not like this." He breathes again, "Not at first. Once I knew you were alive -" the word vibrates between them "I didn't sleep at all that first night wondering if you'd call."

She knows it wasn't just that first night, knows a lot of the nights thereafter were sleepless for him as he kept waiting, and hoping.

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not you weren't ready I... I can understand it now, and Kate, it gets easier."

He knows she knows that, that between them they have racked up enough nightmares to last any sane person a lifetime and they still keep going, keep making it through to the other side. But tonight she needs the reassurance. The comfort she finds only in him. "You speaking from experience?"

"Yes."

His eyes close again, she can see it as clearly as if he was laying next to her and she lets her lids drift shut too. Lets herself see what he sees, allows his memories to become her own.

"I think the worst part was that it would stop at the same point every time." He mumbles quietly, as if not convinced he should be adding to weight of her nightmare with the rehashing of his own. But they find balance in the things they share, in the way fate seems to seek to keep them on an even footing. "You in the grass with my hands in your hair."

Him on the ground in the bright afternoon sun.

Two halves of the same dream.

His voice rumbles through the words,"The way the light rolled out of your eyes as I begged you to stay with me."

His name on the tip of her tongue as she touched his face.

A mirrored existence in fear and the possibility of loss. They dreamt two halves of the same dream, through time and distance they keep getting brought back together.

He sighs and she can see the way his eyes close again, feel the creases that spread over his face as if her hands were on his skin and not bunched up in the cold and lonely pillow cradled to her chest.

"I know the feeling."

"Sucks, huh?"

"It does." She smiles, a pathetic watery thing that doesn't touch her eyes, but in the darkness that hardly matters, all that matters is him.

He huffs a laughs as silence creeps in and steals their conversation. The long distance line between them echoing with memories of things they've said before, whispered words and endearments, quietly sobbed pleasure and laughter. So much laughter.

Kate can't bring herself to be mad at fate, if it seeks to set them on a more even footing, if it balances the scales and gives her the chance to love him the way he deserves to be loved. With her whole heart.

"You'd have been okay, you know, if-"

"Never." She attacks the word as it leaves her lips, a fierce vehement hatred for the belief he has rising up inside her like bile.

"Yes, you would. You're strong." He says it with something that sounds like pride, but it's marred by a yawn, pulled from his lips on the tail end sleeplessness.

"Not that strong, Castle."

"Strongest person I know." He states it with such belief, such conviction that it seems to fill the room around her. This vision of her that he has in head, so vastly different to the woman she sees, the woman she would be without him. "Alas, you're stuck with me."

"Not stuck." She can't find another word that works though. He's a gift. A light in the dark. Her partner.

He makes a joke about glue, about being joined to every part of her and though he means it to be suggestive, even dirty in the end it's just sweet, and true.

So maybe_ stuck _ does work. Fused, entwined. They adhere to one another, no matter how far apart they might be.

"Forever." She breathes, and in the pre-dawn shadow she finds another spark of hope, another source of comfort as her eyes drop down to her finger. She's taken to wearing the ring to bed. It helps.

He yawns and she does too nowhere near tired. And she hears him shuffle about and set his phone down. A wave of panic floods her chest. "Leave the...don't hang up okay?" Her voice feels small, ridiculous, this tiny insignificant thing and her request is -

"Of course." He states, "I'm not going anywhere, Kate." The firmness of his tone drowns out her self doubt instantaneously.

"I love you, Castle." She whispers.

"I love you too, Kate."

They talk for a while about nothing, and everything. She doesn't tell him that McCord told her what he said, she doesn't tell him that he's insane to think she would be anything but lost and broken without him, that the mere thought of it terrifies her and still haunts her dreams.

She doesn't tell him, but she does plan on showing him. She's back in the city tomorrow with their new case and she's going to surprise him, to sneak up and steal that joyful gasp from his mouth before he has the chance to squeak it out loud. She'll creep into his home and lay in wait like he did for her.

He falls asleep first and she lays there longer than she should just listening to the steady echo of his breathing. Her decision is made, has been since that night at the hospital, now she just needs to tell him, to find the path that leads back home, leads to him and the dreams for a future she came too close to losing.


End file.
